Have you ever heard the story of two French country girls? One is full of bizarre and dark stories but can’t write. The other writes beautifully and is also responsible for transcription. Later, the things they wrote together were sent to the publishing house. The one who could write was treated as a genius and went to Paris to become a writer, while the one who made up the story stayed in the village killing geese every day.
At first, I thought it was a story about jealousy or betrayal, but after reading Li Yiyun’s The Book of Goose, I found that it asks something more awkward: If something is created by you, but only others can narrate it, is it still yours?
Fabienne is the one who wants stories. She can make up the most cruel plots to send chills down your back, but she is almost illiterate. Agnès can write, but she has no imagination, so Fabienne talks and Agnès writes — the two work together like gears. When the letter came, the publisher only praised Agnès as a genius and did not mention Fabienne. Agnès didn’t explain. She just packed up her luggage and went to Paris. Fabienne stood next to the goose pen and read the letter with blood on her hands. After reading it, she folded the letter and continued to work.
There was a passage in the book that made me very uncomfortable. Agnès wrote back, and Fabienne replied, “You have to write sadly.” In fact, Agnès was not sad, but she wrote it that way. The publisher cried when he read it, saying, “You must have a broken heart.” Agnès did not deny it. Li Yiyun wrote a sentence here, and I stopped for a few seconds after reading it: “The saddest thing about a story is that once it’s told, it no longer belongs to you.”
I remember that I drew a picture with my deskmate in high school. The whole class thought it was drawn by him alone. I stood next to him with a pen covered in paint in my hand. I wanted to say something, but everyone had turned around. That feeling is not anger, but emptiness. You know that things are yours, but you have no evidence.
Li Yiyun wrote this emptiness to the extreme. Fabienne had never questioned Agnès in person. She just became more and more silent.Later, Agnès returned to the village and found an old botanical book in Fabienne’s room, which contained all the stories they wrote when they were children, that Fabienne kept. She can’t read it. Maybe she just remembers the existence of those stories. It’s enough to remember them. Agnès stood there, holding the childhood of two people in her hand. Li Yiyun did not write about her crying or her confession, she just let her stand there. The cruelest thing for me in that picture was not the theft, but being left behind. The person who stole it could continue to move forward. The person who was left behind was stuck in the crack of time, holding the evidence in her hand but no one saw it.
Therefore, The Book of Goose is not about betrayal, but about belonging and how fragile the word “common” is. I think you should read this book, not because it can give you the answer, but because it will remind you of someone, someone who played with blocks with you, made up stories together, and stole watermelons with you. Later, what was shared became one person’s, and the other person disappeared. You may feel that you are Agnès, or you may feel that you are Fabienne. Both are not good, but at least you know that you are not the only one who has that kind of bad feeling.
